Google Maps changed the way we get around. It all began in a spare bedroom in Sydney

WITHTephen Ma has the full right to assert that the rights are bragging for helping to hatch the most popular online platform in the world. Instead, over the past two decades, MA, one of the four co -founders of Google Maps, buried himself in a large black hole of anonymity. But not because of some kind of shame or regret -he is just not alone to blow up his own pipe.

“I am inclined to be a very private person,” Ma says in a rare interview. “I am a lack of focus.”

Over the years that have passed since the launch of February 8, 2005, Google Maps broke its way to our daily life, having become – for example, water or electricity is an integral service. This is a pocket atlas, compass, restaurant guide, bus schedule and search mechanism and recommendations for all our geospatial requests.

Google Maps has become an online jaggernaut, having more than 2 billion monthly users around the world, which remains on the trajectory of tireless expansion both on scale and on the scale. He also supports countless third -party platforms, such as Airbnb, Uber, real estate portals and platforms for delivery of food and e -commerce, which rely on the location and navigation skills of Google Maps.

The technology is currently the key support of the Google/Alphabet technological complex, the company that the author and philosopher Juval Noah Harari describes as one of our “incomprehensible, algorithmic overlords”.

Now, on the eve of the 20th anniversary of Google Maps, the 54-year-old Australian software engineer had a change in the heart. He wants to write himself in the history of the fund, as well as recognize others whose contributions were lost sight of or drawback.

Being a recognized founder of Google Maps, the STEM community still respects, especially in Australia, where Google Maps was born. This may not make you household chores, but this can open the doors.

WITHThe history of Tefen Ma begins in the rural city city of the New South Wales Kum, where his family ruled the Chinese restaurant. For the 20 years, until the mid-1980s, the dragon gates were an adaptation on the main street of Kuma, where the favorites of Canton Australia, such as Chicken Chow Mein and sweet and sour pork, were served.

This provided existence for an extended family and everyone who got up. However, in all other respects, he remembers this as an ordinary childhood – most of which was carried out in front of the screens.

“I have done a lot of stereotypical technological things, such as playing video games and training programming on the Apple II computer,” he recalls.

By 1998, MA MA MAS he graduated from the university and worked in Sydney, when he got a job in Silicon Valley, just as the boule of the dot -comedom was aware of the peak insanity. Then the bubble burst and by the beginning of the 2000s, along with thousands of others in the technological sector, they turned out to be unemployed.

Returning to Sydney, a former colleague and a colleague named Noel Gordon contacted him, who invited Ma Masa to join him and two other unemployed engineers -programmers – Danish brothers Jensu and Lars Rasmussen to work on the startup. Their great idea was to create a new type of mapping platform.

At that time, the Mapquest was an indisputable market leader in the field of online, which was purchased by the AOL Internet giant in 1999 for the then amount of $ 1.1 billion. USA.

But Mapquest was awkward and lived halfway between the digital and anal worlds: the user on which the route was planned was to print the turning directions on the desktop or laptop. It was a digital dinosaur, completely unaware of the approach of Cataclysm.

Calling themselves where 2 technologies, four partners, based in the reserve bedroom of Gordon’s apartment in the suburbs of Sydney Hunters -Hill and began to build a program for using Windows, which they called the expedition.

The 2004 prototype screenshot shows that a familiar look and sensation shows me. At the top there is an targeted bar in the center, a map of the city of San Francisco with a route following the 80 intelligence line over the Bay bridge, allocated in the form of a red line. Two location contacts, in the form of an American -style mailbox on a pole, note specific places.

“I am actually surprised how similar to how Google Maps looks today,” Ma says, examining the screenshot for the first time in many years.

It was a demonstration that they presented in Sequoia Capital, the legendary venture capital company in Silicon Valley, which has been finances some of the largest names in the world of startups since the 1970s. Where 2 Crew hoped to provide some initial financing and relieve pressure from their contracting personal savings and maximum credit cards.

But in March 2004, the Yahoo Maps launched a new function called SmartView, allowing users to search for a card for such categories as restaurants and entertainment. Today it is a standard function on all online cards; Then he was innovative enough to scare Sequoia to pull the plug on a deal.

As a comforting prize, a team where the 2 team was represented by Google, one of the star customers of Sequoia. And not only anyone in Google: they must present their demonstration by Larry Page, one of the co-founders of Google.

Page was impressed, but was not interested in table software. “We Really As on the Internet, ”he told Rasmussen to the brothers, which means that Google was only interested in the event that the functions of the card worked in a web browser.

Where 2 Team combined the web version of their program using a little-known set of web development methods, known under the abbreviation Ajax, short for the asynchronous JavaScript and XML, a web language. This meant that an already loaded web page can bring new data – in other words, in itself – without the need to update the entire page.

Instead of loading the massive image of the card, the web page will load a few smaller card tiles and display them as necessary. This gave a feeling of dynamic, without friction that you are now experiencing on all online Picture platforms.

The demonstration was a hit. Google hired a team where 2, and subsequently bought her intellectual property at an unsolved price.

“Google was very good in gathering good teams at very low prices, because at that time there was no competition in the acquisition space,” says Ma.

The price of sale, where 2, never opened, but in the annual 2004 Google report there are tips: she revealed that $ 66 million. The United States was published in a combination of funds, future bonuses for performance, stocks and options for four small acquisitions, including where 2 would be divided between several owners.

Since then, Alphabet Holding Company has grown. Adapting to break the shares, the action cost about 2 US dollars when the company swam in 2004. This week, shares are traded in the range from 190 to 200 dollars.

On June 7, 2004, where the 2 team appeared at work as Google employees at the company’s office in Sidnesh, which at that time was only six sellers. Eight months later, Google Maps debuted.

“IT is a great product, and they did what they did very successfully, ”says Professor Scott McKir, a professor of media and communications at the University of Melbourne. “[But] Google Maps works based on data extraction. This receives information about the whereabouts, so this is very valuable data for all types of people who want to collect information about you. ”

Ma says that commercialization and intellectual analysis of the data were not on the radar when he worked on cards. They appeared after he moved to other projects in 2006. “I don’t think we thought too much about it at that time,” he says.

“The prevailing belief was that as soon as you bring users on board, you can find out the strategy.”

He recognizes the problems of confidentiality: the task of preserving honest and transparent companies is partly in the hands of the user and partly responsibility of the governments, he says. “The biggest problem is the fact that the technological landscape is changing so quickly. It is very difficult to keep up with these regulatory mechanisms. ”

However, not only confidentiality raises red flags. There is also an alarm about excessive effects on satellite navigation – and, according to the conclusion, Google Maps – on the function of the brain.

Recent scientific studies show that an expanded dependence on assistants of these drivers may be associated with a decrease in the hippocampus, part of the brain regarding spatial memory. This can be a factor in a cognitive decline.

MA admits that there are potential dangers in the absorption of many new technologies, but believes that we should know more than concern. “I think that as people, we are very adapting. But do we adapt it in such a way as to overcome potential damage? I don’t know.”

MAnd not the type of draft character with a large look, usually associated with the start scene. It is a little untidy, slightly traditional, and not one for chit-cheat. But he is proud of the role that he played in filming Google cards from the ground.

“There are ways to feel a reward. It can be monetary, it may be recognition, ”he says. “But, knowing that so many people use what I helped to build, this is probably the most pleasant part of this.”

From the point of view of the one who receives a loan, Ma says, while it was originally four people, where 2, most spots should go to Jens and Lars Rasmussen: it was their idea in the first place.

But there are others whose contribution was missed. In particular, he quotes Bret Taylor, James Norris, Andrew Kirss and Seth Laforg, whose names were also included in the original Google Maps patent. If there are any arguments about the history of the origin of Google Maps, MA says this list should resolve the dispute.

“I think this is important, because quite often the perception is that one or two people are responsible for most of the work, while it will almost always be a team.”

Noel Gordon, co-founder Ma Google Maps, describes MA as “Rockstar engineer-programmer”, which can write a beautiful code with “without fat on it”.

“Stephen is one of those people who become right to such an extent that it is necessary to solve, very quickly. He is just one of a kind. ”

Nowadays, MA works with a partner in an enterprise called Reggie Health. He uses AI to automate administrative tasks for suppliers of medical services and any other who needs to juggle with appointments, manage patients and send reminders.

Since Google left 14 years ago, Ma only when the liba worked in startups: until that moment, no one was successful. But this does not hold him back. He is the one who experiences acute sensations from solving problems and finding solutions.